3.3.2 Types of search engines dependency

Different types of search engine dependency can be identified:

• Search engine satisfaction: users are performing web search on a specific search engine which give them entire satisfaction. They then have no reasons and intentions to change;
• Search engine patriotism: users are performing research on a specific search engine in order to support a specific cause, for example to support the nation-al economy: Yandex and Baidu;
• Search engine convenience and lock-in effect: users are performing re-search on a specific search engine for all the other services it can provide: convenience. He may be lock-in as well in all the services he subscribed to and do not wish to change for this reason. For example it is more convenient to gather all the services under the same provider than going on each individ-ual website to use the service (using one email box for different accounts, displaying on the same page news from different providers…);

As explained in chapter 3.2.7 most of all search engines leaders are moving in this direction.

Being search engine dependent means using massively a search engine for one of the reasons above and to not use and even think of others solutions. Search engines dependency reach very high rate in Europe:

Google market shares in Europe in 2008, source:Comscore

Most of the European countries have a strong addiction to Google with more than 70%. It means than most of European citizens are fed by using the same way to process information.